A recent study published in the Royal Society journal Proceedings B by scientists from the University of Reading in the United Kingdom found that land near towns supported greater insect diversity than those in rural areas. Lead researcher Dr. Deepa Senapathi explains that species have been declining in both urban and agricultural areas for years, but species declined further in rural areas. This is in part due to the increases in large expanses of monoculture. And this dynamic rings true in the U.S. as well with nearly 50% of America’s land set aside as managed cropland, rangeland, pasture, or production forest land.

Dr. Deepa goes on to say, “While concreting over the countryside may appear to be bad news for nature, we’ve found that progressive urbanization may be much less damaging than intensive agriculture,” she said.

Consider some of these pollinator gardens in our nations urban areas:

Creating pollinator gardens in Baltimore. Photo by Carolyn Millard

Students collect herbs on PS 41′s greenroof in Manhattan. Photo by Megan Westervelt

Native prairie in Chesterfield Central Park, MO. Photo from City of Chesterfield

Cities and Communities Making a Difference

City governments are already stepping up to help pollinators, including the monarch butterfly. St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay has been a champion for the monarch butterfly and launched a successful and growing Milkweeds for Monarchs program. Austin Mayor Steve Adler and the Austin City Council recently passed a resolution to get more milkweed planted on city properties and launched a pollinator challenge. Alpharetta, GA, is joining the Million Pollinator Challenge as well, encouraging its residents to create habitat within the community.

Installing a garden in a Washington DC backyard. Photo by A. Frayer

Join the Movement

We need YOUR HELP to reverse the troubling decline of pollinators by creating pollinator habitat where you live, work, learn, play and/or worship. Please join the 150,000+ Americans who are part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Garden for Wildlife movement and access resources through Facebook, our Wildlife Promise blog and our website.

To reach the scale of habitat restoration needed to turn the tide for monarchs and other pollinator species, we will need cooperation from urban, suburban, and rural landowners and land managers. We must all do our part. Combining our work in urban and suburban areas with restoration of habitat on public lands; utility, highway and railroad right of ways; hobby farms; stream buffers; edges of crop fields; rangelands; and on the 26 million acre Conservation Reserve Program; we can provide the acres of habitat needed to help insects that pollinate our food crops and those in steep decline, such as the monarch.